Investment entrepreneur Samer Choucair affirmed that the accelerating global race in artificial intelligence between the United States and China doesn’t represent merely a technical competition, but constitutes a strategic shift redirecting global investments toward countries capable of building advanced, secure digital infrastructure.
He explained that Saudi Arabia is among the leading beneficiaries of these shifts, drawing on Vision 2030’s targets and the massive investments it has poured into technology, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure sectors.
US-China Competition Accelerates Investment in Digital Infrastructure
Choucair said that recent international analyses showed that the accelerating progress in advanced AI models being developed by major companies like OpenAI and Anthropic has become a key factor shaping global economic and technological balances.
He added that these advanced models give the nations possessing them growing capabilities in cybersecurity, digital intelligence, and discovering technical vulnerabilities, which raises global demand for sovereign digital infrastructure, secure data centers, and advanced computing.
He noted that the intense competition between the United States and China is pushing governments and companies to increase spending on strategic technologies, creating broad investment opportunities for countries with a clear vision for developing their digital economy.
Saudi Arabia Benefits From the Global AI Shift
Choucair explained that the Kingdom has succeeded in recent years in building a strong foundation for launching into the AI economy, benefiting from continued government support and the massive projects launched under Vision 2030.
He added that data center capacity in the Kingdom has multiplied sixfold since the Vision’s launch, with investments exceeding 4.2 billion dollars, equivalent to more than 16 billion Saudi riyals, while more than 20 specialized companies manage this growing digital ecosystem.
He affirmed that strategic projects such as the Hexagon data center with 480 megawatts of capacity and the “National Data Lake” project connecting more than 430 government systems reflect the scale of transformation underway in the Kingdom in building an integrated digital economy.
Vision 2030 Drives the Kingdom Toward Technical Leadership
Choucair said that Vision 2030’s targets go beyond merely developing infrastructure, as they aim to turn Saudi Arabia into a global hub for artificial intelligence and data centers.
He added that the Kingdom aims to reach an operational capacity of no less than 1.8 gigawatts by 2030, backed by strategic partnerships with major global technology companies, strengthening its position as a regional and global hub for advanced technologies.
He noted that artificial intelligence has already begun making a direct contribution to the Saudi economy at 1.4% of GDP, while estimates point to the possibility of adding roughly 135 billion dollars to the national economy by 2030, equivalent to roughly 12% of GDP, at a compound annual growth rate of 43%.
Samer Choucair: 2026 Represents a Turning Point in the Saudi Digital Economy
Choucair affirmed that 2026 represents a pivotal stage in the Kingdom’s digital transformation journey, explaining that focus has shifted from the initial experimentation phase to the phase of execution and broad-scale strategic investment.
Choucair said that sovereign AI infrastructure has become one of the most important economic assets in the modern world, noting that giant data centers have come to form the core pillar of the global digital economy.